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Updated: May 5, 2025
He well understood the devotion of the Norse people to the family of Harald Fairhair, and he now considered that his own safety could only be secured by the death of this possible rival. Earl Hakon had a great friend named Thorir Klakka, a man who had been many years at viking work, and had often gone on trading voyages to England and Ireland and other lands bordering on the Western Sea.
Believing every word that Thorir told him, and trusting in the man's seeming honesty, Olaf accepted the advice, and fared northward day and night until he came to Agdaness, at the mouth of the Thrandheim fiord, and here he made a landing. Now a great surprise was in store for Thorir Klakka.
He questioned every man on board, but all swore by the sign of the cross that they had seen nothing. For a time Olaf was forced to suspect Thorir Klakka; but he soon dismissed the thought.
Thus with guileful speech and subtle flattery did Thorir Klakka seek to entice Olaf over to Norway, to the end that Earl Hakon might secretly waylay him and bring him to his death, and so clear his own path of a rival whom he feared. And Olaf, listening, received it all as the very truth, nor doubted for an instant that the people were waiting ready to welcome him back to the land of his fathers.
"If you and your people refuse to be baptized," Olaf said, "then I will fare through the isles with fire and sword, and I will lay waste the whole land!" Thorir Klakka laughed to himself at hearing this bold threat, and he thought how ill it would go with any man who should attempt such a thing in Norway. But there was something in Olaf Triggvison's nature which compelled obedience.
He searched among the shadows of the bulwarks and down among the rowers' benches, but saw no trace of his secret enemy. When he entered his cabin he found only Thorir Klakka, lying, as it seemed, asleep upon the floor with an empty drinking horn beside him and breathing heavily.
Ill content was Thorir Klakka at seeing with what ease Olaf Triggvison had gained influence over these people, and how ready all men were to follow and obey him.
Haakon went so far as to try to compass his death, sending his friend Thore Klakka to Dublin, where Olaf then was, to kill him if he could, otherwise to entice him to Norway when he would himself destroy him.
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